AJ in his red hoodie appeared on the balcony and he deftly climbed over the side and dropped on top of a dumpster and then to the ground. He made sure his hood was on and then stuffed his hands into his pockets and approached Nell and I.
“Hey Peep,” I said. “This is Nell, my Witch.”
Nell waved at him and AJ nodded, keeping his eyes to the concrete.
I scratched my head. “Sorry I threatened you before, I just didn’t know if you were dangerous. Now that I know Alek was making you spy on us, I feel kinda bad about it.”
“S’okay,” he replied quietly.
“I just wanted to clear the air, since we’ll be working together. Hopefully we can establish some trust.”
AJ shifted uncomfortably. “Okay. I can still take jobs from him, right? I need the money.”
“Do what you need to, I’ll stay out of it, unless it involves Nell and I. Honestly, I’m a little surprised that someone so young is involved with the Rings.”
AJ shrugged. “My mom’s sick. She can’t work, so I have to.”
“Is she your only family?” Nell asked.
“Yeah.”
“What’s she sick with?”
AJ didn’t answer.
“Sorry,” Nell said quickly. “I just had a thought that maybe I could help, but that’s stupid. I might just make it worse.”
“Regardless,” I interjected, “we won’t bring up your side jobs to the team if you don’t want us to. We can call this a fresh start.”
AJ met my eyes with a serious expression. “Thanks. They always get on my case about being safe. But I have bills to pay.”
“Is that mostly what you do? Spying with your Shape?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he gestured to the back of his head. “This invisible tentacle comes out of the back of my neck. I can move it, make it see or listen or speak. Only one thing at a time though.”
“That’s quite useful. You must be a valuable member of Graham’s team.”
AJ looked down again and scuffed the ground with his dirty sneaker. “Nah. They don’t take me seriously. They call me Peep, cause that’s all I’m good for. I can’t fight like Spike and I can’t talk well like Terry.”
I winced at the name. “Is Spike doing okay?”
“Yeah, he got a skin graft. He’s fine. But he might be angry at you, I’m not sure.”
Nell bent down to AJ’s level. “I hope your mom gets better soon.”
AJ nodded quietly.
“Alright, we’ll be heading out for now. It’s nice to get acquainted, AJ.”
With that we headed out from the barber shop. I looked up nearby places to eat and we ended up walking over to a nearby farmer’s market.
The stalls were filled with summer’s harvest and people were milling about buying produce and artisan crafts. Nell admired a stall that was lined with buckets of bright red strawberries glistening in the sunlight.
I bought a cup of whipped cream and strawberries and we found a place to sit and eat. Nell seemed to enjoy people watching in busy areas like this one. Her eyes would follow a person as they weaved through the crowd until they disappeared from sight. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like she was watching families, parents often with their children. That made me think about her offer to AJ to help his mother.
“What do you think about the crew?” I asked.
“Mmm,” she said, licking whipped cream from her lips. “I like Graham, he speaks well and he seems kind.”
I nodded. “I agree. There’s something scholarly about him, so it makes sense that you would like him.”
Nell quirked an eyebrow. “I’m scholarly?”
“I’m watching you do it right now, studying away,” I said with a smile.
“I hope I’m not being weird,” she said self-consciously.
“Nah. It’s fine.”
“Zola seems gentle too. He has an accent I don’t recognize.”
“We can ask him tomorrow.”
“Richard seems angry and I don’t like Terry. It feels like he was examining me like an object.”
Terry had made me a little uncomfortable, but I hadn’t picked up on that. I supposed Nell would be sensitive to being treated like something inhuman.
“Vanessa is a bit overwhelming and AJ… he’s quiet. He acts older than he is.”
I nodded. “That’s quite an assessment for such a small amount of time with them. I agree with it though. It’s a much more varied cast than I would have expected from a criminal gang.” I paused. “How do you feel about doing something illegal?”
Nell turned to stare at me. “What do you mean?”
“Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you feel guilty?”
Her mouth twitched and she looked away. “Um. No. It’s fine. I guess being arrested would be bad, but compared with what Organ is doing, the Rings seem like child’s play. Maybe my barometer for moral stuff is fucked though.”
“I feel guilty,” I admitted. “But I think I feel guilty either way? Like if we just stopped and ignored what Organ was doing, that would eat away at me just as much, if not more than working with the Rings.”
“I’m for it,” Nell said and her conviction filled my body with a warm sensation. “We need leads and this seems like the way to get closer to those who could be in contact with Organ. They’re distributing that drug across Sillwood. They need to be stopped.”
“I’m glad we’re on the same page about that.”
Nell finished her strawberries and we walked around a bit more. Amusement passed over me and I glanced at Nell. She was smiling at a stall that was selling novelty snacks.
“What?”
She pointed to a nondescript bag with a white label. I picked it up. “Ew. Bugs? You want this?”
“I think you should try it,” she said with a devious grin.
“Why me?” I asked, aghast.
“Chitin. You were talking before about making your antlers stronger.”
I nodded, staring at the bag. “The Arachknights punched right through it. It didn’t do me much good.”
Nell rocked on her heels excitedly. “You absorbed some of the Arachnights armor right? You should try to recreate that durability. Incorporate it into your antlers. Maybe the bugs will help you recall it.”
I made a face. “Eugh…”
Nell laughed and for a moment, I didn’t see the hardened, mature look in her eyes. She was just a normal person, having a fun time. I found myself wishing that she would some day forget her pain and be able to live in moments like these.
I used buying the bugs as an excuse to turn away from her before she saw my shocked expression.
Nell watched in anticipation as I opened the bag and picked out the least offensive looking bug, a cricket. I breathed out, then popped the bug into my mouth. It crunched wetly and Nell’s face became something between delight and disgust.
“Oh my god. It feels like it’s in my mouth too.”
I grinned grimly and forced myself to swallow. “Looks like I won’t be suffering alone.”
“I meant assimilate! You should absorb the bugs.”
I shook my head and popped another one into my mouth, causing a shiver to ripple across my body and into Nell’s. “Can’t. Been dead too long, it doesn’t work. The fire won’t eat it.”
Nell laughed and then coughed, pulling a face. We made it through another five bugs before I had to give up and hurl the bag into a trash can.
“Good riddance,” I said. “I’d rather consume an Arachknight. The barbeque flavor made it worse.”
“Mmm. We should have slathered them in sauce,” Nell joked, smacking her lips.
“I think you just made up a reason for me to eat bugs,” I said accusingly.
“No! Well, maybe a little,” Nell said with a grin. “Anyway, let me try to mix in some chitin. C’mon.”
She pulled me along until we found a tree to sit behind, away from any onlookers. I Shaped small antlers and she furrowed her brow, concentrating on altering them.
I found my mind drifting as I stared at Nell’s focused expression.
“Hey Nell?”
“Hm?”
“You know that ghost I was seeing? The dead guy from the Tongue. It ended up being just a bundle of memories. His memories. I somehow got them when I ate him.”
Nell sat up. “Really?”
“You think that’s normal for Wolves?” I asked weakly.
“I don’t know.” She looked pensive. “I was wondering why you felt a little different since that night.”
“Different?”
“Yeah, I don’t know how to describe it…” She trailed off and then her eyes lit up. “Do you think you could share them with me?”
Could I? We had shared a vision before. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing to have happened.
“Let’s give it a shot,” I said.
Nell closed her eyes and I followed suit, focusing on my memories of Omar. It was a peculiar feeling. There wasn’t a firm delineation between my own memories and his. The feelings that they evoked felt like my own, so I had to remind myself that I hadn’t actually experienced these things. It was similar to how Nell and I shared emotion. There was no sign that said ‘this is from Nell’. I just had to use my intuition.
I let my emotions bleed into hers, swirling together like mixing paint. I could only hope that by keeping Omar’s memories at the front of my mind, Nell would pick up on it.
I could almost feel it working. When my mind was truly relaxed and I no longer cared about any distinction between me and Nell, it felt like she knew everything about me.
My eyes opened and my skin grew cold. I was no longer in Sillwood.
I was in a dark forest. Tears carved trails through the dirt on my face. I raised my hand, beckoning something. My fingers were small and child-like.
Two figures emerged from the dark. Feet stained by the forest floor. Toenails cracked from their shuffling gait. Mouths hung open like worshippers in a church. Eyes… they were gone. Flowers had bloomed out of the sockets. Dark red and purple. They stopped in front of me and despite their disfiguration, I could feel them perceive me. A thought that was not my own wormed its way through my head. You won’t ever leave.
A branch cracked and my eyes flew open. Nell sat next to me, eyes moving beneath her eyelids. I was back. What was that?
A few minutes passed and Nell’s eyes fluttered open. She smiled sadly. “Omar.”
I nodded bleakly. If I gave something to Nell, did she give something back?
“I’m sorry about the bugs,” Nell said, smiling apologetically.
I swallowed and shook my head. “No, it was funny. I feel bad that we haven’t been doing much fun things, even though you have this newfound freedom.”
Nell brushed her hair away from her eyes and looked at me fiercely. “Nick. My life before was… empty. I was confined to a single room. Sure, I was moved around a lot but that only made it worse. A different room every month, but the only thing that changed was the placement of the bed and toilet. Someone always told me what I could and couldn’t do. So you need to understand that… this?” She gestured to the farmer’s market. A mother knelt to speak with her son. Two high-schoolers laughed uproariously on their phones. Smells of a dozen different fresh foods wafted in the air. Nell’s eyes shone. “This is the most fun ever.”
For the rest of the day, I couldn’t get the image of the two people with flowers for eyes out of my head. Eventually, Nell and I parted ways and I managed to distract myself with some half-hearted studying before bed.
When I awoke the next day, I pushed the nightmare to the back of my mind as I once again focused on my next encounter with Graham’s team.
I stopped in front of the warehouse where we had encountered Graham and the cop yesterday. Nell had decided to stay behind and help Kay with some gardening. I promised her that after this short meeting, we would go to university together.
This time, the instructions texted to me from Graham were different. “Go inside the abandoned building, west entrance.”
I walked around the side and found that there was a door ever so slightly ajar. I pushed it open and stepped inside, stopping to let my eyes adjust to the dim interior.
A few of the team members stood a fair ways further inside. They were all looking at me apprehensively. Then I heard a sound and looked to my right. A black circle hovered at head height. Behind it was a scowling man. Richard, that was his name. He smirked at me.
“Ever been held at gunpoint, freak? Don’t try anything or I’m giving you a third eye.”